


The Day After Tomorrow

by estelraca



Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Developing Relationship, Healing, Multi, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 08:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17040068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: It takes eight years, but Ankh is finally back among the living, his body now part-human and part-Greeed.  Eiji and Hina help him adjust to his new life.





	The Day After Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kathillards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/gifts).



> OOO is an amazing show, and I love these three characters immensely. I hope you've had a wonderful holiday season and that this fic is something like what you wanted!

_The Day After Tomorrow_

"It's been eight years."

Kougami just looks at Eiji, as he has every other time.

"You have to have _something_." Eiji knows he sounds desperate, but he can't help it. He keeps coming so _close_ , only to have his hands empty once again when the adrenaline is gone.

"Do _you_ have anything?" Kougami's voice is surprisingly gentle.

"Nothing I haven't already given you." Eiji closes his eyes, drawing deep breaths, feeling too much like he did at the end of everything. As though the world is both too close and far too far away, reality crushing him while he is also held adrift from everything by a gauze of grey cotton that mutes color and deadens sounds.

"Go home, Hino Eiji." Kougami stands up, voice rising. "Seize your life! When there's a birth to announce, believe me when I say the world—and _you_ —will know it."

"It doesn't have to be the world. Just me." Eiji sighs. "And Hina, and the others. But you're right. I'll go home."

Kougami is humming as Eiji leaves, and Eiji can't decide if there's something hopeful or depressing in the lingering _happy birthday to you_ that follows him into the elevator.

Perhaps the line between the two is thinner than it usually is today.

XXX

"Eiji!"

Hina runs up and enfolds him in a tight embrace as soon as Eiji walks in the door.

She wouldn't have done this when he first started traveling. There was too much between them—too much pain, too much hope, too much fragility. Their friendship was firm and solid, something he anchored his sanity in for the first year that he searched for clues to heal Ankh's shattered medal. Physical demonstration of that affection... Hina had spent too much time— _all_ her time—in Japan, and Eiji was still reeling too much from the incremental bartering of his humanity.

When did she first start greeting him with a hug? During the second year? No, the third, he thinks. After his phone was destroyed, and he realized exactly how difficult it was to find pay phones in the age of cell phones, and he ended up out of communication for longer than he ever intended to be. That was the first time she rushed to him and embraced him, clutching his whole body just as tightly as she clutched his hand when she saved his life (when Ankh shattered himself to save a world).

There was desperation that first time; now there's only affection, and Eiji sinks into it. He buries his head on her shoulder, and breathes in her familiar scent, and feels some of the _tension_ he had been carrying inside him dissipate. That bowstring _need_ to find a way to help Ankh, to find a way to move _forward_ without losing the past, releases a bit of its pounding urgency, and he's able to breathe more easily.

"I'm home." He whispers the word into her shoulder.

"Welcome home." Hina responds as though he were family, her arms tightening just a little. Never enough to hurt, but enough to make him feel safe and protected.

"I haven't found anything." Eiji doesn't give more context; he doesn't need to.

"That's all right." Hina's fingers slide through Eiji's hair, testing the length of it, pushing it carefully behind his ears. He should really get it trimmed again soon, before it goes completely out of control, but cutting it when wandering the arctic desert hadn't been high on his priority list. "Do you want to see the others?"

"Yes." He does, he realizes. He usually does, once he stops moving. They have been life-lines for him, each one different but all important, and he will be very happy to see them again—to see the cafe again.

"Tomorrow?"

Eiji nods, and Hina smiles at him. Her hands are warm on his as she nods and pulls him deeper into her apartment.

There are sketches and swatches of fabric littering every available surface. They gather them together, clearing enough space to cook a meal and put down plates for both of them. Eiji cleans the pans and dishes after dinner, while Hina sorts out how she can rearrange her schedule to spend as much time with him as possible before he finds his next lead and wanders off again in search of what they both want.

When Hina takes his hands and tugs him into her bedroom at the end of the evening, Eiji goes willingly. They don't do anything but sleep, but they don't need to.

Sometimes the warmth and sound of another person—of a _friend—_ next to you is all that's needed to make the world manageable.

XXX

Eiji settles back into his friend's life with the ease of practice. This is what he does, now—he travels until his heart hurts too much or he has something he thinks Kougami will want, and then he comes home. He rests. He heals. He remembers what it is that keeps him human, keeps him tethered to the world and his quest.

He does some work at the restaurant, wearing ridiculous costumes, smiling at children and their over-stressed parents. It's another balm to his soul, and by the end of a week he's feeling much more like himself—much more like he can continue doing this, being a hero and also being human, which may be the hardest thing in the whole world.

That's when Kougami calls him to tell him that they've found it.

"Date brought the information we needed. Well, Goto did, but Date found it via one of his... connections..." Eiji understands why Date has the connections he has—understands how desperation creates strange bedfellows, and how the doctor's need to heal can sometimes lead one into situations one wouldn't end up in otherwise. He's still impressed by how Date handles his worlds and his contacts. "They combined it with what I found in France, and what I found in Brazil, and now..."

Hina is driving, and her knuckles are tense and white where she grips the steering wheel. The wheel has begun to bend a bit, actually, but Eiji pretends not to notice.

Now they're going to see... what?

Kougami's video call had started with confetti and a belted version of the only song it really _could_ start with, of course. But then he had begun hedging, saying that things weren't _perfect_ , but if Eiji and anyone else he felt appropriate wanted to come—

So of course they came.

Hina holds his hand as they walk into the building. She stares down the security guards that he just waves at, energy radiating off her in waves. She isn't angry, Eiji doesn't think, but it _almost_ reads like that. Perhaps because fear and anger go together so frequently in other people? Perhaps because _frustration_ can often be read as anger, even though it isn't?

They have lived through these eight years together, and every one has dragged at both their skins, leaving its mark.

Satonaka meets them at the metal doors leading into the laboratory. She looks bored until she sees their faces, and then _something_ flickers in her eyes. Pity? Compassion? She holds two... Eiji's not quite sure what to call them. They're not quite medical scrubs, and they're not quite hazmat suits, but they look vaguely like both. "Here. There _shouldn't_ be much risk, but given the delicate situation Kougami thought you wouldn't want to take any chances."

Hina nods, pulling her outfit on with swift, jerking motions that strain some of the seams. Eiji follows suit, pausing before putting on the very familiar medical mask. He looks up at Satonaka. "He... will he be able to recognize us with these on?"

"I'm not sure he's recognizing anyone right now." Satonaka shrugs. "It's your choice. The doctors are ripping their hair out trying to figure out how concerned about human medical problems they need to be versus Greeed medical problems. It'll probably be fine either way."

Pressing the foam around her nose into an appropriate shape, Hina looks over at Eiji. Her eyes crinkle, making him think she's smiling though he can't see it. "We'll be safe. If he wants us to take them off, though, then we do that."

Eiji nods, donning his own mask. When the metal doors open—an airlock being revealed, another set of metal doors beyond—Eiji takes Hina's hand and steps forward together with her.

The being inside the room is both achingly familiar and utterly alien.

Ankh's wings are the most obvious thing in the room. They _shine_ and _shimmer_ , resting gently atop his back. They look as beautiful on him now as they ever did when he was in his full Greeed form... look as beautiful as they ever did on TaJaDor, and Eiji spends a few seconds just staring at the familiar curve of the feathers.

The back that they are attached to... Eiji can't say if it looks more human or more Greeed, and the combination of the two forms is disconcerting. Pale human skin swirls into red feathered skin swirls into slightly darker human skin, and the wings rise out of the morass.

Eiji's gaze travels as they cross the impossibly long two meters to Ankh's bedside. Ankh's back may be mottled, but his right hand... that is purely Greeed, just as his wings are, and so wonderfully, terribly familiar. How often did that hand grab Eiji's shirt? How often did it throw him what he needed? How often did it touch him or Hina, gently, hesitantly, the Greeed who controlled it slowly becoming more human... more a part of their lives and family?

Ankh's face is another dichotomy. His right eye, his hair, the majority of the right side of his face... they are still Shingo's features. It's almost strange to see them on Ankh again after eight years of Shingo himself being in Eiji's life, but the Greeed skin and eye on the left half of Ankh's face make it easier to disconnect this form from that of the detective.

He's sleeping. _Just_ sleeping, it's clear. He hasn't been clothed at all, and his chest rises and falls with steady breaths. His wings flutter slightly, little movements, fluffs of feather that catch Eiji's eye and hold it.

Ankh is here.

Ankh is alive.

Hina's hand is practically crushing his, and Eiji doesn't think she's taken a breath since they paused at the bedside.

"Ankh." Eiji's voice breaks the silence of the room—a humming silence, air circulation, probably medical equipment, other background noises that he had ignored until his human voice shattered their soft sounds.

The figure on the bed stirs. The wings stretch. The Greeed eye cracks open, then the human one.

Ankh frowns at them. His hair isn't styled, and it flops towards the ground, drawn by gravity.

Eiji doesn't know what he expects. What he _fears_ is something like _who are you_. What he _wants_... ah, his desires are always so incredibly large. What he _expects_... how can someone have expectations of something like this?

"Eiji." Ankh's voice is soft, cracking on the syllables. His eyes shift to Hina. "Hina. Where've... you been...?"

Hina looks at him, tears welling up to fill her eyes, and Eiji knows that there are tears in his, as well.

XXX

Hina marches with Eiji into Kougami's office, demanding that they be allowed to take Ankh home.

Kougami just laughs, grinning, and claps them both on the shoulders. "Certainly! Certainly. Though if you'd be willing to wait another day or two for Date to be back in the country and clear him, as well as the rest of my doctors..."

Would they have fought if Kougami had tried to say they couldn't take him? Would they have fought if the time Ankh had to stay was more unreasonable? Would they have fought if Kougami hadn't dropped Date's name?

Hina doesn't know. She hadn't _intended_ to spend seven days staying hidden in a secret medical base at the Kougami Institute, but that's apparently what she's doing, and she supposes they'll just have to make the most of it.

Ankh is...

It feels so strange to even _think_ those words. She's _wanted_ to, for so long. Ankh _was_ an integral part of her world, of Eiji's world. Ankh _was_ a villain, and a hero, and a man who wanted to _live_ , who wanted to _touch_ , who wanted to be so _alive_ that he could _die_ , and all of that changed Hina more deeply than she would have imagined possible.

It took her two years to stop expecting to see Ankh's expressions on her brother's face.

It takes her less than a day to become comfortable with her brother's features and Ankh's human expressions merged with the Greeed's face, for the way he tilts his head and moves his mouth and squeezes his eyes to become a welcome, readable sight.

Ankh spends the first day learning to walk again. It irritates him, and he snaps at both Hina and Eiji for trying to help him, insisting he doesn't need assistance.

Hina takes his hand anyway, and gives him support and strength and stability when he needs it. Eiji doesn't grab him, but when Hina has to take a break, she watches Eiji walk slowly at Ankh's side, and knows that Ankh won't fall while she's gone.

Ankh is _alive_.

Ankh is _here_.

Ankh can _feel_.

"We found that we couldn't just heal the medal." Kougami's scientists had been very proud of themselves. Hina knew that it was proper that they should be—they have _resurrected the dead_ , created something _alive_ from the shattered corpse of a creature that was more a force of wanting than a living being. She still felt the urge to punch things as they talked about Ankh as though he were a toy or a robot or a piece of code that they finally managed to get working. "Medals don't _heal_. We did consider trying to simply resmelt it, but the boss said he wanted the original mind back. So we combined organics with the alchemists' work—it wasn't as hard as we thought it would be, really. The alchemists thought all things were related, that all matter could be changed into other matter, and the Greeed—"

Hina stopped listening after that. It was probably better if she didn't physically assault the people helping them, and they had done nothing wrong. A lack of empathy isn't a punishable offense, and who would expect them to love a Greeed like they do?

Anyone who watched what they went through. Anyone who knew a fraction of their story, and she calls her brother, she calls Chiyoko, she calls Date even though she suspects he already knows.

Eiji focuses on Ankh, and Hina reaches out to let everyone else prepare for the changes that will be happening in their lives.

Because as soon as they've able to, they've going to bring Ankh home.

XXX

They bring him back as some monstrous amalgamation of human and Greeed.

When he first wakes Ankh doesn't know where he is or what's happening, and he lashes out at the doctors who forged this impossible body for him. That just results in his being sedated.

The second time he wakes the process is slower, and Eiji and Hina are at his side.

They don't think he's a monster, either because of the past or because of the form that he's in. They tell him that he's beautiful, touching his wings with reverence, their hands shifting from human shoulder to feathered Greeed skin and back without reservation. (They touch him so much more than he would have expected. They look so much _older_ than he expected. But eight years have passed, they tell him. In the time it took him to die and dream a handful of minutes and open his eyes, eight years have slipped away. It's better than eight hundred, but in some ways it's even more disconcerting.)

There are members of the Kougami foundation who want to study him. They come by every few hours, asking for blood or measurements or demonstrations of his physical abilities. He tolerates them because they help him learn this new body that he's in, physical therapists giving him exercises he should do, tools he can use, ways for him to become independent again.

He should, eventually, be able to shift his form from human to Greeed and back again. No one can tell him exactly _when_ , but all the scientists watch him hungrily for signs that he's gaining that level of control over himself.

Mainly he just wants to be able to walk, and run, and _fly_.

They don't let him fly. There's too much danger, everyone tells him. He could hurt himself if his wings don't work.

He allows their paranoia to keep him restrained for a week. At the end of the week, he turns to Eiji and Hina. "Get me out of here. Now."

They both hesitate. They're afraid, he sees. They've been without him for so long that they don't want to risk losing him again already, and he feels burning fury mix with despair at the thought that they're going to help keep him caged here.

(He _feels_. He feels _so much_. He can _taste_ , and _smell_ , and _touch—_ so much glorious touch. The warm of hands on skin; the callouses of Eiji's fingers, the different callouses on Hina's; the cold of examining tables, the sharpness of needles, it is all so blessedly _there_ , so _intense_ and _immediate_ that it would hurt if he let it. Instead he drinks it in, savoring every little bit, wondering if he will ever be as inured to the pleasures and pains of the body as the humans he was once built to imitate and has now come to integrate.)

"You want to leave?" Eiji reaches out, his fingers finding the tips of Ankh's claws on his right hand.

"I wouldn't ask to if I didn't want to, idiot." Ankh flexes his fingers, sliding his hand more firmly atop Eiji's.

Hina nods. "Then we're going to need a cloak."

XXX

They smuggle Ankh out of the Kougami Foundation and into Chiyoko's waiting van without any difficulty.

Eiji wonders if Kougami knows what they're doing and allows it. He wouldn't be surprised; he also wouldn't be surprised if he gets a call soon asking what they've done with Ankh. He doesn't expect much more than that to happen.

It's not like they're falling off the grid, or making Ankh disappear completely. They're just giving him the freedom he needs, because some people are never meant to be caged.

Ankh keeps the cloak on while they're in the van, listening to Chiyoko rattle off information about how the last decade has gone for the restaurant. He's listening, Eiji can tell, but he's also watching the scenery. Looking for changes? Finding it familiar? It's hard to tell.

When they arrive at Hina's apartment, Ankh steps out of the car, moving with dignity. He looks up at the balconies, most decorated nicely; he looks at the security guard at the door, and one eyebrow quirks.

"I've been... pretty successful." Hina smiles shyly at the ground as she makes the admission.

"She's been amazing. Her designs are being used and sold around the world." Eiji grins, almost going off on a tangent about the awards Hina has won and the people who have bought her clothes. He knows Ankh would be bored by that, though, and manages to rein in the impulse.

Hina returns his grin with a broader smile, and they each take one of Ankh's hands, walking him towards the door. The doorman bows to Hina and ushers them in without even seeming to notice Ankh.

They take the stairs up to Hina's apartment. Ankh runs his human fingers over the banister, then switches to the other side of the stairwell to do the same with his claw-tipped fingers. He smiles as he does, though he looks away and the expression fades a bit when he sees Eiji watching him.

Hina leads them out onto her floor and to her apartment, opening the door and stepping back so that Ankh can enter.

Ankh throws off the cloak as soon as the door closes behind him. He turns in a slow circle, both his eyes—bird-eye and human-eye—taking in the room. "Pretty. Also messy."

Hina looks down at the ground. "I wasn't exactly expecting company, and I had projects I was working on—"

"I'd like to see them." Ankh points towards the closed bedroom door. "Do you have pictures? Or completed outfits?"

"Both." Hina's head comes up, and she smiles as she steps forward. She takes Ankh's hand in hers, then turns to gesture for Eiji to follow them.

He does, his shoulders sagging with a relief he hadn't expected.

They're home.

They're together.

For the first time in eight years, it seems like things might be returning to the way they should be.

Or... that's not quite right. This isn't a return to anything. They've never been able to live together, unafraid, without the threat of the end of the world hanging over them.

This is something new they're building, something precious and different, and Eiji loves it dearly even though it's just getting started.

XXX

Ankh eats like a starving man.

Hina had thought to have Chiyoko bring some popsicles when she picked them up. They're all gone within four hours. Ankh seems to regret the impulsive action over the next few hours, something he should have remembered from his time borrowing Shingo's body. On the other hand... being dead for eight years probably makes it seem more important to get your pleasure where you can.

He can _feel_. He can _taste_. Hina remembers, so vividly it sometimes hurts, the way Ankh described his life as a Greeed... and the way Eiji eventually admitted the steady drain on his humanity was affecting him. She wishes that the Kougami foundation had spoken to them before changing Ankh on such a fundamental level; she wouldn't steal away his joy and life for anything in the world, and wonders what choices she and Eiji would have made if consulted more.

The first day they're at her apartment Ankh stays inside, exploring, examining her clothing lines and her technology and the pictures that have changed since he was last among them. He asks questions she had expected before, about Goto and Date and Chiyoko and the rest; he asks questions she hadn't expected, about the state of the world and how Eiji and she have been doing. She answers as best she can, hoping she doesn't ever say the wrong thing.

The second day they're staying at her apartment he disappears, and she almost has a heart attack as she searches the apartment for him. Eiji is the one who suggests they go up to the roof, but Hina is the one who gets there faster.

Ankh brought his cloak up. She can see it lying in a heap just outside the stairwell, while Ankh has his wings spread wide, catching every little breeze that travels across the concrete.

They don't shine. Hina _knows_ they don't shine. But they still seem to glimmer in the light, every ruffle changing the way they look, and she steps forward without meaning to, reaching out to touch them.

Ankh turns before her hand connects, head tilted, eyes slitting as he watches her.

Hina freezes.

Eiji steps forward on Ankh's other side, hand also outstretched.

Ankh sighs, the tiniest smile toying at the corners of his mouth. "Fine."

The feathers are soft. They don't feel like fur, and they don't feel like skin, and Hina finds herself wanting to just bury her fingers in Ankh's wings forever—to feel the solid muscles lying beneath the softness, to watch and touch as it flexes and stretches.

Eiji sighs next to her as he buries his own hand in Ankh's other wing, a soft, contented sound she doesn't think she's heard from him before.

Ankh stares straight ahead again, at a horizon of skyscrapers broken by the odd little bit of greenery. "I want to fly."

Neither of them answer. Neither of them try to tell him not to, that it's too soon. They just stand there, touching him.

Ankh's muscles tense and then relax, and he turns his head away. "Soon. When I'm sure I won't fall."

"We'll make sure you don't fall." Eiji's hand moves from Ankh's wing down to Ankh's waist, and he slides Ankh into an embrace.

Hina moves in on Ankh's other side, and it's like when they stood together on the bridge, hand in hand. It is also nothing like the time they stood on the bridge together as the world ended, because there is nothing more pressing than the bills they have to pay and the lives they have to live weighing on their minds. There is more than the press of hand against hand. There is body against warm body, longer, lingering points of connection.

She doesn't know how long they stand there. Minutes, maybe. Long enough for the shadows to move, just a bit; for the sun to hit an angle that is more glare than beauty, and Ankh turns away from it.

They don't speak as they head down the stairs, Ankh's cloak draped over Eiji's shoulders like a scarf.

They don't need to.

XXX

Ankh is the one who starts it by kissing Eiji.

He doesn't really think about the implications before he does it. There has been _energy_ in the air, between him and Eiji, between him and Hina, between Eiji and Hina. There has been _wanting_ , made worse by all the damn _touching_ that apparently became normal in the time he was gone.

(He doesn't begrudge the touching. He is glad that Eiji seems... happier is the word that comes to him most often, but it's not quite the _right_ word. There was something broken and mended in Eiji when Ankh knew him, only the mending was a rough stitch over a still-oozing wound. Now... now there is something _healing_ in Eiji, something that has been healing while Ankh has been gone, and if the touch was part of how the healing happened then Ankh is glad of it.)

Perhaps it's because he's a Greeed. _Was_ a Greeed. Still _is_ a half-Greeed, perhaps, though that seems to be up for debate. Physical desire was their purview as much as any other desire. The animals the alchemists stole from to create them all reproduced sexually. Well... all right, maybe that was a lie for Mezool and Uva. But for most of their natures and for the creatures they fed off of, sexual desire was natural, nourishment to the Greeed like any other want.

Eiji wants him.

And Eiji is dripping shower water, wearing only his boxers, blinking sleepily at Ankh's wings. _Smiling_ at Ankh's wings, reaching out to touch them as he has since that afternoon on the roof, and Ankh doesn't think before he acts.

He used to think before every action. He used to consider what the consequences would be—who it would benefit, how it would help _him_ , whether it would bring him closer to fulfillment or bring him danger. For creatures that never truly lived, the Greeed all clung desperately to the half-life the alchemists granted them.

Now... perhaps he's not quite who he was before he died. Perhaps dying itself changed him in ways he is still exploring.

Or perhaps he just feels too damn _safe_ here, with Eiji and Hina, and thus does stupid things that he maybe shouldn't.

He feels Eiji tense against his body, Eiji's lips freezing as Ankh's press against them.

Ankh pulls away, wiping at his mouth. He glares at Eiji, which he knows isn't fair, but this was not the reaction that he expected. Not that he _expected_ a reaction, he just—

Eiji reaches out, grabbing Ankh's hand. "I liked that."

Ankh freezes, turning slowly to look at Eiji. "Really?"

A smile blooms slowly across Eiji's face. "I _want_ that."

Those words have power, between them, and Ankh feels a shiver run through his body—his body that is both achingly familiar and utterly alien at the same time.

"But I also—" Eiji glances towards the bedroom door. "Hina and I—"

"You're being an idiot." Ankh grabs Eiji's hand, dragging him towards the bedroom.

Eiji hesitates at first, but then allows himself to be led, not protesting like he would have once upon a time. Ankh almost misses the sound of protests in his ears.

He doesn't pause at the bedroom door, just opening it and walking in. Hina is busy applying make-up, and she freezes, staring at him in confusion. "Ankh? Eiji? What—"

"Do you want to have sex with us?" Ankh stares at Hina, glad that his features are not _entirely_ those of her brother right now.

Hina turns her gaze to Eiji, mouth hanging open. "W-what..."

"I kissed him." Ankh tosses his head in Eiji's direction, then points at Hina. "He said he wants it, but you and he have a thing. So. Do you want to have sex with both of us?"

Hina just continues to gape at them.

Eiji starts laughing. It starts as a soft chuckle and blooms into full-throated mirth. "This isn't how I expected us to have this conversation."

The laughter seems to help Hina. The amazement fades a bit from her eyes, and a smile starts to twitch the corners of her mouth. Then she's laughing, too.

Ankh stares between the two humans, taken aback and not certain how to get things on track again. "Humans are so useless."

Eiji manages to stop laughing, though he's still smiling as he looks at Hina. "So. Do we want to make these desires manifest?"

Hina picks up a little pillow-thing off the nightstand and tosses it at Eiji. "Stop using words like desire and manifest and I'm all for it."

Some of the mirth fades from Eiji's eyes, and he moves around Ankh. He snags Ankh's wrist on the way to Hina, dragging them into a small huddle. "We're all family. Whether we like this and want to do it again, to keep this up or not, we're all in this together. For the rest of our lives."

"For the rest of forever." Hina's hand joins Eiji's and his in a tangle of fingers and feathers. "Death hasn't stopped us once. I don't see why we'd let it stop us from loving again."

"Forever, then." Eiji looks from Ankh to Hina. "We fight for each other. For the world too, when the world needs it, but we always, always look out for and hold on to each other."

"Exactly." Hina's eyes shine as she looks at Eiji.

"I'm glad the two of you have worked things out." He is, really. It hurts in his chest, to see how they've grown and changed, but it's a _good_ pain—the type of pain that let him know he was alive before, that made him glad to die a hero if it was predetermined that he was going to die. "But I still don't know if I'm getting fucked or not."

Eiji turns and kisses him, fiercely, a hot fire of need and want. Ankh kisses him back, pleased at the intensity with which Eiji is pursuing this.

Then Hina's hands are on his _wings_ , and Ankh breaks the kiss in a sharp gasp, arching, spreading them open wider, accepting her touch. Eiji pulls him close again, Eiji's tongue using the opening of another gasp to work its way into Ankh's mouth.

They don't say much. They don't _need_ to say much. Perhaps they _should_ , still. Perhaps they should talk about heroes, and endings, and living. Perhaps they should talk about futures, and foundations, and the prices they have paid and may end up paying again. Perhaps they should talk about who they are and who they've been and who Eiji and Hina have _become_ , who Ankh _might_ become.

Instead there are hands in his wings, stroking gently along the shafts of the feathers.

Instead there are kisses on his neck, first one side and then the other.

There is the feel of his hands, human fingertips and the lightest touch of claw against skin he could break with a wrong flex. He doesn't, and both Hina and Eiji press _into_ his touch, asking silently for _more_ , unafraid.

Nothing lasts forever, though.

Or... perhaps that's not true. He _wanted_ for eight hundred years, an emptiness that couldn't be filled. But even eight hundred years wasn't forever, was it? And less than a year sharing the skin of a human changed him more than those eight hundred years could have.

When they're done they lie tangled together on Hina's bed. Ankh is at the center of the pile, his wings spread out to cover both Eiji and Hina. None of them are wearing any clothes, and Ankh is glad of it at that moment—glad to be able to study them, to see the scars on Eiji's body and the way Hina's has filled out with maturity.

Hina's fingers toy across the very top of his wing, a gentle caress. "What's the bird sex part called?"

"I think Ankh has a cloaca with an extendable penis." Eiji has his eyes closed, his head buried close to Ankh's so that his talking moves Ankh's hair. "But we can do more tests to confirm."

Ankh flicks his fingers against the top of Eiji's head. "Don't sound like one of Kougami's doctor thugs if you ever want to do this again."

"It was a lot of fun." Hina rolls closer to him, her body pressing against his. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes." Ankh tries and fails to sound bored. "It felt... good. Right. You guys, and me, and... well. I would do it again."

"It completely defeats the purpose of my showering, but I like it. Take life as it comes. Enjoy the day you have, and don't stress too much about tomorrow." Eiji opens his eyes, his hand trailing up Ankh's chest to his neck. "Especially when tomorrow might be gorgeous."

" _Today_ is gorgeous." Hina reaches under his body, her hand touching Eiji.

Ankh makes a contented noise of agreement, pressing his wings tighter against them both.

This isn't going to last. The peace, at least, and the three of them together in this room—that _can't_ last. Ankh knows that it can't stay like this forever. Hina will need to go to conferences, to travel and improve her clothing line. Eiji... Eiji can't stay in one play for too long, not unless there's something like Ankh's recovery to keep him rooted.

And Ankh... he was trapped for eight hundred years, dead for eight. When he's well, when he can enjoy being _whole_ , he wants to see the world. With Eiji, on his own... with Shingo, maybe, because he still feels a strange connection to the man whose body he stole.

And the world will need them. The world _always_ needs heroes, though it has a terrible habit of destroying them, using them up and breaking them, as it almost did to Eiji. The way to save them isn't to stop them from being heroes, though. It's to support them, to be the hands that reach out to stop them from falling, to toss them the tools that they need, to gentle the landing when they stumble or fall. Eiji will always be the hero, and Ankh...

Maybe Ankh will decide to be the hands again, reaching out across the distance.

Hina kisses his neck gently, and Eiji holds his clawed fingers tight, and Ankh lets go of thoughts of the future to focus on the glorious now.

XXX

One month later, and everything has changed despite staying the same.

The three of them are still staying in Hina's apartment. It's become _their_ apartment, and they've modified it to make it their own—to make it easier for the three of them to stay together when they want to, while still having their own space when they need it.

Ankh can control his form now, shifting from human to Greeed appearance and back again. He's back to his usual self, physically and mentally.

Eiji himself is starting to get restless. It's not terrible, and he knows that he can make it better by wandering the city. There are always small communities to find, areas that are different enough to be interesting—and people he can help, no matter where he is.

But first... first there's an important task still to see through.

Ankh is wearing his usual clothes, dark close-fitting jeans and a brightly colored shirt that he shrugs out of in one fluid motion. The sky's bright blue seems to limn his body as he moves to the edge of the roof.

He looks back at them, and the smile on his face is so unmistakably Ankh—confident, practically _regal_ , someone who can take on the world and walk away.

A shrug of his shoulders, and his wings spring into view, thick and glorious. They flap once, twice, moving as he tests the wind.

Hina's hand finds Eiji's, and he squeezes tight.

Ankh looks back at them one more time, and his smile is fond, this time, full of affection.

Then he jumps, without any hesitation. Eiji's breath catches in his throat for one second, two—

And then Ankh is soaring up, twisting, diving—free of gravity's hold for the first time since he returned.

And though they're only with him in spirit, Eiji feels like he and Hina have been cut free, too, the world showing itself for the beautiful marvel that it is.


End file.
